#TBT – Lotus 30 – Ian Walker
Throwback Thursday – Ian Walker grinning from ear to ear whilst sitting in the brand new Lotus 30 at the Motor Racing Show, Earls Court in 1964. The Lotus 30 was Colin Chapman’s first attempt at a large volume engine model to compete against Lola and McLaren and was an effort to prove to Ford that he was a better designer than Ian Broadley (designer and founder of Lola).
Ian went on to run two Lotus 30’s in his race team for 1964 but as he soon found out, it turned out to be a notoriously hard to handle car. This was primarily down to the design and construction of the chassis and whilst being made aware of his engineers concerns, Chapman didn’t make any changes to the design before production.
Even under the control of Jim Clark who was renowned for pushing any vehicle to its limits, driving round any flaws to power, stability or design, the cars proved to be a disappointment in the 1964 season. The car was plagued with failures and only managed to finish two races.
